HTC Volantis tablet leaked

There’s been no shortage of Nexus tablet rumours in recent weeks and it appears that at least some of them have panned out. As rumoured, HTC scored the contract and there’s a new Nvidia chip inside.

Android Police has the scoop, in the form of a few leaked images, backed by the spec. The codename of the new Nexus tablet is Volantis, but it is expected to end up the Nexus brand, as the Nexus 8 or Nexus 9.

The tablet has an 8.9-inch, 2048x1440 display (2048x1536 minus UI bars). The tablet features aluminium zero-gap construction with tapered sides and coming from HTC, build quality should be bulletproof. It has 2GB of RAM, 16 or 32GB of internal storage, an 8-megapixel main camera backed by a 3-megapixel unit at the front. It is 7.9mm thick, making it a bit thicker than the Nexus 7, but then again it is an aluminium design. It is not the lightest tablet around, either. At 418g it is close to some 10-inchers.

The processor running the show comes from Nvidia. It is a Denver chip, i.e. a Tegra K1 64-bit. There is no word on the clocks though. This fact also means the tablet will launch with an all new Android build, with full 64-bit support. In addition to two custom 64-bit CPU cores, the chip also features 192 CUDA cores, courtesy of the Kepler-based GPU.

The beefy GPU can be used for a few clever things aside from games. Google already used the Tegra K1 in the Project Tango tablet. However, this appears to have been a 32-bit implementation. The HTC Volantis will be the first device to sport the 64-bit version of the chip.

However, although this looks like a legit leak from a reputable source, please take it with a grain of salt. The tablet is not official yet and we would like to get multiple source confirmation, which is still lacking.